Places

When Garou tell tales of Weaver-spirits, they speak most often of spiders. After all, the Mad Weaver is known for her webs, but even she is not entirely predictable. After all, she can make shape and substance out of the limitless possibility of the Wyld. Travelers tell tales of bizarre creations: mad caterpillars and silkworms endlessly spinning their silken, sticky threads; tentacled monstrosi­ ties carefully coordinating the elaborate terpsichorean ministrations of their myriad limbs; cockroaches and sinister insects chittering Morse messages that force the ephemera around them to pulse in time to insectile com­ mands; a single blinking light repeating mathematical patterns hypnotizing its minions into performing idealized plans. Even when the Umbra is orderly and patterned, the Weaver is still insane enough to trap travelers with demented creations they’ve never encountered or even dared to dream of before.

In a legendary time before the dawn of human history, the Wyrm was a restorer of balance, bringing harmony where there was none. The Wyrm ensured neither the Wyld nor the Weaver dominated all of reality. Dwelling between Chaos below and the Pattern Web above, the Wyrm only destroyed discriminately, acting as a vital mediator in the creative process. Whatever the reason for its loss of balance, the Wyrm was ensnared within the Pattern Web, and in desperation, it fragmented into three sentient minds and went insane, like a three-headed beast at the entrance to a Malfean underworld.

The Wyrm became a harbinger of the Apocalypse, spawning creatures with a new arsenal of weapons to seek and destroy: decay, entropy, and corruption. Because it cannot destroy with honor or conscience, it must corrupt from within. When it cannot slay the strong with brute force, it must seek weaker victims who succumb to hate, envy, or lust. Where it cannot strike overly, it must act unseen: victims who are strong in mind or body may be spiritually weak. Faith is fading in this world of shadows, and institutions that preserve and nurture the spirit are dying, replaced by gross satiation and material greed. Like the gods of Longfellow’s Prometheus, whom the Wyrm would destroy, it first makes mad. A mind that cannot be suborned can be shattered.

The Wyrm has found sentient creatures weak enough to surrender to temptation. It now commands a legion of malefic spirits ready to possess and exploit its army of the damned. This strategy seems to be working, as their numbers are so vast they require three heads of an unholy hydra to command it: the Beast-of-War employs brutal acts of savagery and violence; the Eater-of-Souls gluts and bloats itself while feeding on foulness in the world; and

the Defiler Wyrm rejoices at the suffering of minds and souls. Each third of the trinity commands a legion of spirits within its own hierarchy, including a pantheon of Urges that cater to the sins and destructive desires of mankind.

Garou and other spiritual travelers have found en­ tire realms conquered by the aspects of the Wyrm. Blind destruction has left these places devoid of any trace of Gaia’s presence, grace, or influence. Those who dwell there have been enslaved, punished, altered, or victimized by wicked Banes and Incarnae. If the prophecies are true, the Wyrm will inevitably triumph in a final Apocalypse. All of creation will either be remade in the image of one of those realms or be utterly and completely destroyed. Each fight, each battle, each war the Garou wage against the Wyrm forestalls that horrific onslaught. Each respite is bought with the flesh and blood of Gaia’s protectors. Garou kill the Wyrm wherever it breeds; the alternatives are corruption, annihilation, and oblivion.